Thoughts on Queens Plaza and infrastructure

A rendering from the Queens Plaza redesign.

Urban Omnibus interviews designers Margie Ruddick, Sandro Marpillero and Linda Pollak about the Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project. Some good discussion about the potential of the urban park, salvaging industrial history in the making of green spaces and the question of “How can something hard, urban and harsh operate ecologically?” A bit from Marpillero:

“I think there is more and more awareness about the immense resource that a piece of infrastructure can be…. It feels like there is starting to be an awareness of a wealth of public space, previously unnoticed. The potential is incredible; these places are magic.”

The Queens Plaza Bicycle and Pedestrian Landscape Improvement Project aims to reinvent 1.3 miles of active Long Island City transportation infrastructure as a public space that integrates auto and train corridors, foot and bike paths and planted systems that both beautify and manage stormwater. The design was commissioned by the Department of City Planning and the Economic Development Corporation, and it’s been on the table for a few years now. Unclear when construction is intended to begin, but an interesting design and discussion nonetheless.